The president of a primary virology studies organization involved in debates over the origin of COVID-19 will testify at a public hearing in Congress next month, a key step in the House investigation into the cause of the virus.
Republicans on the House Oversight and Energy and Commerce committees jointly announced that Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, had agreed to testify on May 1 at a public hearing hosted through the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
EcoHealth, a foreign nonprofit whose project is to save pandemics, has come under scrutiny from House Republicans since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic amid considerations that its study projects in China, funded through the National Institutes of Health, could simply be compromised. related to the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
A spokesperson for the Democratic members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic told the Washington Examiner that EcoHealth’s investment and reporting practices were largely a bipartisan concern.
“The testimony and documents reviewed by Democrats on the subcommittee raise serious considerations that EcoHealth Alliance has failed to take into account federal reporting needs that ensure certain grantees are accountable to the American people,” the spokesperson said.
In their press on Daszak’s upcoming testimony, Republican leaders accused EcoHealth of “using taxpayer money to fund harmful gain-of-function studies at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “
Gain-of-function is the procedure of genetically modifying a viral motile to give it a new characteristic that makes it more likely to spread or show new symptoms in humans. There is a lot of debate in the clinical network about which clinical experiment is more suitable. The exact biomedical definition of gain-of-function.
EcoHealth responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on Daszak’s testimony.
John Feigelson, a spokesman for EcoHealth, has told the Washington Examiner in the past that his organization does not conduct any studies on gain-of-function in WIV, saying that any public agreement between EcoHealth and gain-of-function “is based on misinterpretation or planned intent. ” Misrepresentation of actual studies conducted.
Republicans are also questioning the veracity of several answers Daszak provided in his transcript of the closed-door interview with committees in November regarding investment for a specific EcoHealth task to be conducted at the WIV.
In 2018, EcoHealth, the WIV, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill submitted a coronavirus grant proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
During his transcribed interview with the committees, Daszak said the task was aimed at being done exclusively at UNC. However, documents received as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that Daszak had stated in personal communications that a significant portion of the task’s paintings would be carried out in Wuhan.
“I need to emphasize the American aspect of this proposal so that DARPA is with our team,” Daszak wrote to UNC collaborators Ralph Baric and WIV Shi Zhengli at the time of the project.
The studies to be conducted concerned the manipulation of spike proteins in the new SARS-CoV viruses, which would then be injected into “humanized mice to assess the ability [of the modified viruses] to cause SARS-like disease. “
When this allocation was discussed in an earlier report, Feigelson told the Washington Examiner that this allocation was rejected through DARPA and that the team did not attempt to locate other funding resources.
“The only incontrovertible fact is that the investment proposal was rejected through DARPA and the paintings were never completed, and there is no evidence to recommend that other investment resources were secured,” Feigelson told the Washington Examiner.
Feigelson also said that if the assignment had been approved through DARPA, the studies would have been overseen through the Department of Defense.
Republican leaders said the discrepancy between the transcribed testimony of Daszak’s interview and the documentation raised concerns.
“These revelations undermine your credibility, as well as all of the factual claims you made in your transcribed interview,” Republican leaders wrote to Daszak in a letter accompanying the announcement of Thursday’s hearing. “We invite you to rectify this. “
Republicans are also asking EcoHealth for all electronic communications and phone records between the organization and NIH since 2019, as well as all documentation of grant projects from UNC, Georgia State University, and various Chinese establishments since 2014. The committees also request data on no Cyberattacks opposed to EcoHealth since 2019.
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This data is expected to reach the committees by mid-April.
“Committees have the right and legal responsibility to the integrity of their investigations, adding to the accuracy of testimony in a transcribed interview,” the Republican leaders said.